As someone who has been in this House for two and a half years and who in the past has been unemployed and has held low-paid jobs, I think that the mirth with which parts of this debate are being greeted will be seen with dismay by many people outside this Chamber.
The Bill is yet another example of the Government demonising and punishing the most vulnerable in our society and making the poorest live in greater poverty. The most important fact to take into account is that the Bill does not target only those who are out of work, whom I refuse to refer to as skivers, but those who are in work on low wages. It does not affect just those in part-time work, but people who are in more than full-time employment—people who regularly work long hours or complicated combinations of part-time jobs just to make ends meet.